In short
A LinkedIn post from an SME managing director does not need to be seen by ten thousand people. It needs to be read by the thirty who could become clients. Those are two different goals, and they produce two different kinds of content. The post that gets everyone reacting often talks about everyone. The one that prepares the ground for a meeting talks about a specific problem, to a specific reader.
Content does not replace direct prospecting. It makes it easier: a prospect who has already read two of your posts does not open your message as if it came from a stranger.
What you measure: the right people, not likes
The audience that reacts to a post is not necessarily the one that buys. A post on team motivation can appeal to students, coaches and recruiters without reaching a single operations director who could sign.
The right measure is simple: how many people from your target reacted, commented or wrote to you after the post went out? If you can describe your ideal customer in one sentence, this count takes five minutes. If not, start by writing your ICP.
Topics come from your meetings
Most managing directors who give up on posting get stuck on the topic, not the writing. Yet the supply of topics already exists: your sales conversations.
- The question you get asked at every first meeting. If three prospects have asked you, dozens of others are asking themselves without you.
- The objection you hear often, addressed honestly, including when it is justified.
- The mistake your clients commonly make before they meet you, described along with how to fix it.
- A choice in your line of work, explained: why you do something one way when others do it differently.
Note these down during the week, one line each. On the day you write, the topic is already there.
The structure of a post that prepares the ground for a meeting
The first line names the reader's problem. Not your company, not your news. On a phone, LinkedIn only shows the first few lines before "see more": they decide whether the rest gets read.
The body brings something concrete. A three-step method, an example from your line of work, a figure whose source you cite. Paragraphs of two or three lines, one idea per paragraph.
The ending opens up without selling. A question about the reader's experience works better than a link to your website. A post that ends with a sales offer signals that everything before it was there to sell it.
Let us take a fictional example, for an SME that sells industrial maintenance:
Most of the line stoppages we see are not caused by an unpredictable breakdown. They come from a part whose wear had been visible for three months, but that nobody was responsible for checking.
Three questions to find out whether this applies to you: who records the condition of wear parts, how often, and where is that information written down?
If the answer to the third is "in someone's head", that is where the risk lies. How is it organised on your shop floor?
Nothing in it talks about the company posting. Yet a production manager who recognises the problem now knows who deals with it.
A cadence you will still be keeping in six months
Content rarely fails for lack of talent. It fails because people give up. A managing director who posts three times in one week and then disappears for two months builds nothing.
One post a week, on the same day, is a pace you can sustain alongside running a business. Block out forty-five minutes in the diary, like a client meeting. A good post can then be reused elsewhere: as the basis of an email to your clients, a standard answer to a frequent question, an entry point for a prospecting message. The overall rhythm of the sales week, content included, is covered in the sales cadence.
Commenting on your prospects' posts matters as much as posting
Posting is only half the job. The other half is reading what your prospects publish and responding usefully. A comment that adds a piece of information, a nuance or a precise question makes you visible to the author and their network, which often looks a lot like your target.
"Great post" adds nothing. "We see the same thing with automotive subcontractors, with one difference: the problem mainly shows up when work restarts after the holidays" brings a fact from the field and opens a conversation. Ten minutes a day is enough, as long as you follow a short list of prospects rather than the general news feed. How to follow two useful comments with a message is described in commenting before you write.
From post to private message
The post has done its job when someone from your target reacts. Then you need to open the conversation, and this is where many people go wrong by immediately sending a sales presentation.
Start from the subject of the post, not from the reaction. For example:
Hello Ms Lambert, the subject of wear parts seems to strike a chord with you. In your organisation, is this monitoring assigned to one specific person, or is it shared across the team?
The question can be answered in one line and asks for no commitment. It continues a conversation the post has already started. How to build this first message is detailed in six first messages, with commentary.
In the Trouve Tes Clients method, content belongs to the Personalise step: it gives the prospect a reason to recognise you even before your first message.